The Hermit showed up while I was planning the upcoming Winter Solstice experience with friends.
And it made something clear.
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The version of The Hermit card that centers isolation can’t hold what this moment asks of us.​
Not with the world as it is. Not with how much we’re each carrying.

At the beginning of the year, I explored The Hermit as the tarot card for 2025 on my podcast (here and here). Its lesson felt clear:

Inner work is essential.

So seeing it return last week didn’t surprise me.

If you’re not familiar with the traditional imagery, The Hermit is a solitary figure on a mountain, lantern held out in the dark. Quiet. Separate from the world.
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It’s often defined as stepping back, to go within and reconnect with self and spirit. Tuning out the world around us and tuning into the light within us.

But during our planning call last week, I realized that the old definition only told half of the story.

Yes, tuning into our light – especially during Winter Solstice – matters, but it leaves out the part that matters most for the world we’re in now:

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Our Light was never meant to be explored only in isolation.​
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The Hermit can’t be a figure who disappears from the world, taking their light with them. We need both – time with ourselves and connection with others.
We need to share our light.

Our inner connection and our collective connection are not competing needs – one will collapse without the other.

Looking back on 2025, I see how much of this year was about learning to carry our light with us. Into rooms, into conversations, into community—where it can actually do something.
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That’s what steadies us. Especially when things feel heavy or overwhelming.

And it’s the perfect time to step into the new version of Hermit energy because Winter Solstice is the turning point of the season and also a turning point for us.

It’s a moment to gather, to steady ourselves, and to reconnect with what matters before stepping into whatever comes next.

I would love it if you joined me and my friends, Cristina Maria Rojas Fernandez and Liz Buehler Walker, for a free Winter Solstice experience.
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It’s a place to step into the quiet calm of the season, ground into our shared wisdom, and remember that you are a unique expression of the universal field of consciousness.

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